The word marriage came from Latin maritare, union under the auspices of the Goddess Aphrodite-Mari, and because of this, Christian fathers were opposed to the institution. Catholic scholars say the wedding ceremony was “imposed on” a reluctant church, and in fact, there was no Christian sacrament of marriage until the 16th century and the liturgical forms were borrowed from pagan common law. When Christian authorities revised pagan marriage laws, they placed a wife’s property in her husband’s control, removed the Goddess whose many forms protected the married woman, and formed a slave-and-master relationship.

The theological view of the time was that “woman has sinned more than man” and should therefore be unhappier. And in Friar Cherubino’s 15th century Rules of Marriage says: “Scold her sharply, bully and terrify her. And if this still doesn’t work…take up a stick and beat her soundly, for it is better to punish the body and correct the soul….”

-- Walker, Barbara G., The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1983. 585-556, 589-592.